


A special day

by UrsaeMinoris



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Baking, Birthday, Birthday Party, Fluff, Food, Gen, Hunk (Voltron) Has Anxiety, Hunk (Voltron)-centric, Hunkuary, POV Hunk (Voltron), Team as Family, Tooth-Rotting Fluff, hunay is like in canon and can be read romantic or platonic, set during season 2
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-19
Updated: 2020-01-19
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:21:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22322512
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/UrsaeMinoris/pseuds/UrsaeMinoris
Summary: In the midst of an universe-wide war, all Hunk wants is a quiet moment on his birthday, so he can have cake with his friends. The team also thinks that Hunk deserves good times!--Padding along the dimly lit corridors, Hunk yawned, still half asleep. He wasn’t exactly a morning person… But baking was a good enough reason for him to get up early. And today was a special day, after all…
Relationships: Allura & Coran & Hunk & Keith & Lance & Pidge | Katie Holt & Shiro, Hunk & Shay (Voltron), Hunk & Voltron: Legendary Defender Team, Hunk/Shay (Voltron)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 19





	A special day

**Author's Note:**

> I really wanted to write something cute for Hunk's birthday! I hope you enjoy!
> 
> -edit 13-01-2021  
> A big thank you to [sequence_fairy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sequence_fairy/pseuds/sequence_fairy) for beta-reading his fic!

Padding along the dimly lit corridors, Hunk yawned, still half asleep. He wasn’t exactly a morning person,but baking was a good enough reason for him to get up early. And today was a special day, after all…

Or at least, according to Pidge’s calendar, it was.

She had programmed this app to keep track of the Earth date. They both agreed that it wasn’t actually synchronized with Earth: first, it attributed an Earth date (Gregorian calendar) to the days on the Castle; but the “days”on the Castle were Altean quintants, slightly longer than Earth days (about 27 hours instead of 24), so there was a growing time gap. Then, they were traveling through space, and if Einstein was correct about relativity… due to their speed, time should be passing differently for them than on Earth. Throw in the “twin paradox”... and the general relativity theory, as traveling near giant stars and black holes could cause time dilation too…

He was working with Pidge on a program, which would truly give them the date on Earth. They struggled with the fact that they were always on the move at non-constant speeds, and they still didn’t really understand how wormholes affected the whole process.

Accurate or not, Pidge’s calendar helped them stay sane. All the paladins had it installed on their phones, and Hunk found it grounding. Their lives were so full of uncertainties, agreeing on the date was a start.

So, according to said calendar, today was Hunk’s birthday! Hunk had decided he deserved nice things. His family was so far away that it hurt to think about, and he missed them even more on those occasions. But he refused to be miserable on this day! And the team deserved some good times, too.

As he entered the kitchen, the lights went on. He had about two hours before their usual morning briefing, and then training. Thankfully, no mission was planned, today. Although you could never know, not with the way Zarkon kept finding them. Hunk sighed. This was something he didn’t want to dwell on right now.

He joined his hands, closed his eyes and took a deep breath, centering himself. He opened his eyes again, keeping his breathing slow. He was in the Castle’s kitchen, and he was safe. He was about to bake a cake and other pastries. And he had two hours, which should be enough, no need to get overwhelmed with that either.

He got to work.

Keeping himself busy was the best anyway. He had bought some ingredients last time they restocked. He had also learned to employ ingredients common on board. Mixed with a Unilu powdered sweetening agent, the food goo made a decent icing. Kaltenecker’s milk was a blessing. The scaultrite was too valuable, and was needed for the teludav, so Coran had banned him from using it in the kitchen. As an apology, Coran had shown him a classic Altean recipe; how to turn the waste from the purification of the weblum's scaultrite crystals into a delicious butter. Hunk was honored to be trusted with such important knowkedge.

Hunk gathered what he needed. He prepared a dough out of Arusian flour, weblum butter, Unilu sweetener, milk and Galra spices. He was lucky Alteans did use some equivalent of baking powder. Coran had provided him with some after his first attempt at cookies.

Since enlisting in the Galaxy Garrison, he had spent his birthdays away from his family. Therefore, he had his own birthday tradition: he would bake a cake, a different one each year, because he liked to experiment. This year he had planned a layer cake. He would also always do paifalas. They tasted like home, and he always loved to introduce the Samoan half moon pies to his friends! Of course he hadn’t the right ingredients here, but he had designed a recipe close enough for his taste.

As he put the cake layers in the oven, he noticed something curious. He was still alone, undisturbed in the kitchen. No-one had shown up for breakfast! Sure, Keith sometimes dashed to the training deck without eating, to Shiro’s disapproval, and Lance and Pidge got up as late as possible and Coran had weird hours, and might have taken a bowl of food goo before Hunk was up, but Shiro and Allura would have come eat breakfast by now. Maybe they saw Hunk baking and were afraid to bother him? Hunk felt a little bad at that thought. He didn’t want them to skip breakfast because of him. On the other hand, that way they would be more hungry for his cake and paifalas, wouldn’t they?

He crushed the dried Olkari fruits and mixed them with milk, Olkari honey and Arusian flour, and heated it in a pan. This would be the filling for the paifalas. While the mixture was cooling, he worked on the pie crust.

He cut the dough into seven pieces, rolled them into circles, and added the filling onto them. He wet the edges of the pie crusts, and folded them together. Then, he put the folded pies in the oven.

While the cake and paifalas were baking, he prepared the food-goo based frosting. He mixed it with sweetener and weblum butter, and added some starberry juice for a bit of a kick. When the cake layers were ready, he stacked them and frosted the cake. He was quite happy with the result.

The paifalas were almost done too, their crust already a nice golden color. A warm, fruity, and buttery scent was filling the whole kitchen. Still, no one was in sight. Hunk bit his lower lip, fumbling with his fingers. This was becoming concerning.

He walked to the bridge, hoping to find them. And indeed, the whole team was there already! Yet it was too early for the morning briefing. Not good, not good at all, did he forget a meeting?

Allura was piloting the Castle and seemed concentrated. The paladins were lounging in their seats with more relaxed attitudes. Pidge was playing a game on her computer. Lance had his headphones on, and sat with a leg thrown over the armrest. Keith stood near Shiro as they talked quietly.

“Hu, sorry, did I miss something?” Hunk asked nervously.

Allura turned to him with a warm smile. “Nothing at all, Hunk! Are you done baking? We didn’t want to disturb you.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m almost done! Maybe you can come eat, if you’re not busy? It’s just, if you want to taste it while it’s warm… we still have time before training, right?”

“No training today!” replied Coran. “It’s a special occasion!”

Lance put his headphones away, and winked at Hunk. “You thought I forgot your birthday, buddy?”

“I uh… I expected you’d have other things on your mind. And no-one else knew my birth date?”

“Well, maaaybe I told them!” Lance crowed.

“Coran and I can handle the landing process,” announced Allura. “Why don’t you all go to the kitchen? We’ll join you in a few doboshes.”

Hunk was about to follow her suggestion when he looked out of the ship’s viewing bay. His heart did a somersault. “Is that…. the Balmera?”

“We hoped you’d be happy to celebrate your birthday with the friends you made here,” explained Shiro.

Hunk tried to thank them, but he was already tearing up.

“So you can spend your birthday with your giiiirlfriend!!!” teased Pidge.

Hunk felt his cheeks become hot, but he couldn’t come up with a reply. It was all too much at once.

“Okay, okay, big boy, why don’t you let us savor that cake?” exclaimed Lance, as he got up and pushed Hunk in the direction of the kitchen.

Hunk resisted. “Can’t we wait? We’re almost there. Maybe we can share our meal with the Balmerans.”

“We will touch ground in a few doboshes,” confirmed Coran.

“I’ll check that the food doesn’t burn, but it should be fine,” replied Hunk, relieved.

The paladins escorted Hunk to the kitchen while Allura and Coran landed the Castle. Hunk discovered they had all prepared cookies and cakes while he wasn’t watching. Allura, Coran, Pidge, Keith and Shiro did so while he had been on a mission with Lance. Lance himself had baked cute Lion pastries. Allura and Coran had made Altean cookies; they promised to teach him the recipe.

As soon as they landed, Hunk sprinted out of the Castle. Shay waited with her family, and she wrapped her arms around him, pulling him into a tight hug.

Shay and her family came onboard to celebrate Hunk’s birthday.

Sweetened in the right way, the food goo could make a decent custard substitute. Hunk added leftover fruits and cookies, to create a sort of trifle. He was worried there would not be enough food, but between his cake and paifalas, and the pastries baked by the team, it was a whole feast. They didn’t have a candle, so Pidge added a small electric light on top of Hunk’s cake.

The Alteans and Balmerans had to learn the birthday song, with varying results, but they put all their hearts in it. They were all very excited to take part in this Earth tradition.

\---

The paladins stayed the whole day and night on the Balmera. So far, luckily, no sign of Zarkon. Hunk and Shay were peacefully enjoying the sun rising above the Balmera.

“Since your visit, I have been lucky to behold the sun rising every morning,” confided Shay.

Hunk didn’t know what to add, so he just smiled. His heart was singing. He had missed Shay so much.

She stepped closer to him, resting her shoulder against his, their hands brushing against each other, while they watched the Balmera crystals glister in the golden light. “I do love the sunrise, and will never tire of it. But nothing compares to witnessing it with you.”

He took her hand. “When I see the sun rise, I always think of you,” he admitted. “Spending my birthday here with you was the best gift I could ever have.”

**Author's Note:**

> I hope you had fun reading this!  
> If you're curious about paifala, this was inspired by this cool website about Samoa Food: <http://www.samoafood.com/2010/09/paifala-samoan-half-moon-pies.html>
> 
> Share your thoughts with me here, on twitter at <https://twitter.com/UrsaeMinoris2> ,on tumblr at [https://ursae-minoris-world.tumblr.com/](https://ursae-minoris-world.tumblr.com) or on Pillowfort at <https://www.pillowfort.social/ursaeminoris>
> 
> All comments are loved, including long comments, short comments, <3 for extra kudos...! 
> 
> Find this fic on :  
> <https://twitter.com/UrsaeMinoris2/status/1219084374429310977>  
> <https://ursae-minoris-world.tumblr.com/post/190409969303/a-special-day>  
> <https://www.pillowfort.social/posts/1056896>


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